Painting and Weeding

Forced to stop due to the rain, this seems as good a time as any to give an update. Last weekend was busy with Patrick pushing me much harder than I prefer to work. But as long as he's working, I feel bad to relax. Right now it's a bit different though, while he finishes the final touches in the closet, I'm resting my back. I guess I pushed myself too hard and have had a horrible back ache since Wednesday.

So yes, we're finishing the closet now because last weekend we got a bit distracted and painted the kitchen.


Now we finally have a finished room. We even put up our first picture frames. The light yellow makes the room feel so wonderfully warm and cheerful. Patrick has had breakfast in there a few times now, despite the wobbly table and ugly cabinets. Now it's about the nicest looking room we have. We also spent a large chunk of our time, most of Sunday, creating a frame on the wall above the washer and dryer so that we could put up shelves. We attached the frame to three vertical studs and then were able to attach the shelves nicely in the middle of the nook. I helped draw up the design and find the correct dimensions for everything, but mostly this project was Patrick's. He's clearly very proud of the job he did.



Those three pictures took all our time last weekend and shockingly, even though we were so close to finishing the closet we didn't work on it at all. We just can't focus. The closet is finished now though. We sanded down the new plaster and painted yesterday and Patrick has been in the bedroom most of the afternoon assembling the closet organizer.


The rest of this weekend, I got out into the garden and finally put in some good time pulling up Oxalis.


Actually, this one isn't a before picture, these pretty flowers are still taunting me in the corner but here is the nice stretch of ground that I worked on.


I cleared out everything around a bunch of irises that we apparently mowed over last year, not being able to see them under all the weeds. They're badly in need of dividing which I'm sure I'll get to eventually...

But the irises that I divided last fall and moved to the back of the garden look wonderful and now that the lavender next to them is in bloom, I really love the contrast.



Everything is finally starting to come up, even the bulbs that I planted far too late in the season. And I can't really be bothered to think of transitional phrases etc. so here you are.


Our Dark Star Ceanthonus, still only partially blooming.



Grape Hyacinth growing around some of my roman chamomile. The chamomile helped while I was picking out the tiny clovers in and around the grape hyacinths, the smell was absolutely wonderful. I'll be putting many more of them around the garden.


The daffodils in this group will be opening any day. Two have already opened in a slightly more sunny spot.


There are two left over tulips in front of the group. Then, the same tulips, just plain red ones, in the front have opened on each side of the front stairs.


Not quite up yet but looking promising are the Hostas I had in pots last year.


Other things coming up aren't so welcome. I have slightly fewer onions spread throughout the yard than Oxalis and their pretty white flowers are starting to emerge.



I quite like the flowers but the leaves are pretty ugly, besides the fact that these are weedy. The blackberries are also coming back.


And I guess that's about all.